


Claiming

by ptw30



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alpha!Keith, Alpha/Omega, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bonding, M/M, Omega!Shiro, SHEITH - Freeform, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 14:06:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13319736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ptw30/pseuds/ptw30
Summary: Shiro once called Keith his alpha, but that was before Shiro went off to Kerberos - and before he started covering his neck.





	Claiming

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: Non-graphic sex
> 
> Guilty pleasure time! I’ve waited to write Omega!Shiro for a while. Finally got an excuse.

Keith had no right to be jealous, and even if he did, it was an antiquated ideology. Claiming was no longer a part of the bonding ritual between an alpha and an omega, and hadn’t been for over a century. An omega didn’t belong to an alpha any more than an alpha belonged to an omega (though some made logical conclusions that alpha and omega, by bonding, belonged to one another).

Still, when Shiro walked into the kitchen, scented of sugary sweetness and tempting flavors, Keith bristled. Every paladin’s head snapped toward their leader, and Pidge’s glasses even fell to the bridge of her nose, allowing her to gawk at Shiro’s attractive form unobstructed.

Shiro turned from what passed as a coffeemaker, cheeks flushed and ears bright red. “Is it that bad, guys?”

“You smell like a fresh strawberry field!” Pidge shouted.

Keith sniffed twice and disagreed. Shiro always smelled more like peaches and sweet cream, with just a dash of cinnamon.

Hunk cleared his throat and stabbed his pancake with his fork over and over again, unable to get the food off the plate. “Your, uh, your suppressant ran out? I guess?”

Shiro let out a disparaging sigh and lifted up his metal arm. “More like the Galra took it. I’ll speak with Allura and Coran, see if they can synthesize a new one. In the meantime, I’ll – ”

“ – sit right here, you sweet thing,” Lance offered, moving over a seat to clear a space between him and Hunk. “You should totally let me lick you – ow! Keith!”

Keith brought his elbow away from the back of Lance’s head and didn’t even pretend like he didn’t mean to whack him. Shiro just rolled his eyes and took his breakfast back to his room.

Keith wanted to follow, to ask Shiro if he was okay or needed anything. Omega heats, especially right after getting off suppressants, were known to be debilitating, but Keith refused to be  _that_  alpha. The one who didn’t trust an omega to know his own body, the one who thought an omega needed an alpha to make it through a heat.

Though Keith thought he and Shiro had come to an  _understanding_  of sorts before the Kerberos Mission, they hadn’t spoke about bonding. They were both young, Shiro only a few years older than Keith, so there wasn’t much to discuss. But Shiro had asked Keith a week prior to mission lift-off to scent-mark him, and Keith had gone so far as to tease Shiro’s gland and bring him to a pleasurable release. Keith, himself, enjoyed a pleasurable climax thanks to Shiro’s fantastic thighs.

“You’ll come back,” Keith whispered, face buried in Shiro’s neck and nose nuzzling that gland.

Shiro drew lazy circles upon Keith’s lower back, voice blissful and hazy. “Hm. Figure might as well. Got all my stuff here, including my alpha. Just makes sense.”

 _My_  alpha, like he’d already accepted Keith as his partner. As if he’d thought of a bonding, a future, a life together.

Keith held onto that even after the announcement of the mission failure, even after Iverson refused to listen when Keith said Shiro wasn’t dead.

They weren’t physically bonded. There wasn’t any way for Keith to know, but the steady if distant warmth in Keith’s chest told him the truth. Shiro wasn’t dead –  _his omega_  wasn’t gone forever – and Keith would do everything in his power to find his future mate.

Shiro came back different from Kerberos, stronger, harsher. If he’d thought of a future with Keith, those plans must have been shredded by the Galra. Shiro probably found someone else during that year away, even if he didn’t remember, and though Keith didn’t smell a change in Shiro’s scent – Shiro kept his collar up, hiding his gland from Keith’s sight.

It also didn’t help Keith’s nerves that every member of Voltron save Shiro was an alpha, including the Alteans (though they had a different name for the classification).  

There was never time to talk after Shiro returned, an endless stream of battles leading to Keith’s realization of being Galra, and now this – Shiro being forced to undergo a heat without a partner. Keith sighed and retired to his room, loathing that Shiro needed to endure yet another torturous affair because of the Galra.

But Keith trusted and respected Shiro to know his own wants and desires, and Shiro would do what he needed to do, would request from Coran and Allura the appropriate items to get him through his heat. Keith would force himself to think of Shiro first and foremost and not of his own feelings of rejection. He’d ignore the way his entire heart felt like it would burst when Shiro called him “his alpha.” Keith wouldn’t think of how he’d wanted to bond right then and there and how he would have done anything to have saved Shiro an ounce of pain during that year.

Instead, he rolled over and loathed his heart, which felt incredibly warm and unsettlingly anxious. He sat up, tossing his legs over the side of his bed and resigning himself to training this new feeling out of him, when a firm knock sounded on the door. By the time he got to it, Shiro’s thick sweet scent wet his mouth.

Shiro leaned against his door when it opened, collar open to reveal his scarred gland.

Someone had ignored the mating rituals all together and instead of bonding with Shiro, tried to make him undesirable to an alpha ever again.

A broken omega who could never be a bonded mate.

Shiro’s eyes were glistening, his breathing ragged. “Look, I’m…different than you remember,” he managed to gasp. “And I’m not sure if you….if you still  _want_  me…but if you do, if you think you could somehow get passed the point that we could never – that you won’t be able to – ”

Keith’s hands came up to cradle the sides of Shiro’s neck, touching the sensitive gland and bringing Shiro a full body-wide shiver. To think, this was all that kept Shiro from his embrace.

“Do  _you_  still want  _me_?” Keith asked.

Shiro pressed his forehead against Keith’s, eyes slipping shut. “Yeah.”

Then Keith pressed up to nuzzle against the scar tissue, against the gland. Actions always worked better for him, but he knew Shiro needed to hear the words. “You’re more than just your body, Shiro. You always have been to me.”

Shiro’s muscles melted of tension, arms wrapping about Keith’s waist to hold close.

“You’re beautiful,” Keith whispered, brushing through the small strands at Shiro’s nape. “This doesn’t change that.”

“But we can’t – You won’t be able to – ”

“Bonding is more than just a bite mark.” The sudden surge of warmth spreading through Keith’s chest and rushing to his extremities proved that. “And even if it wasn’t, I wouldn’t care. I’d still want you as my omega.”

Shiro nestled his face against Keith’s neck, pressing a chaste kiss against the tingling skin. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Keith would admonish Shiro later for thinking something so trivial as a damaged gland could ever come between them, but at the moment, he held his omega in his arms again.  _Shiro finally came back_ , and that was all that mattered.

He took Shiro by the waist, the arm, and the lips, drawing him inside his room, and Keith resolved to make sure his omega never doubted his devotion again.

_The End_


End file.
